The Bill Fornof Memorial Chapter

Bill Fornof Memorial

BILL FORNOF

Bill Fornof wasn’t born in Houma, but I know of few other individuals that had such a major impact on aviation in Houma and the rest of the nation. J. W. ‘Bill’ Fornof was raised in Metairie. He came to Houma in 1954 and opened a car dealership on Barrow St. which later relocated to Main St.

In 1948, Bill flew Corsairs from the deck of the carrier, Midway, as a Navy fighter pilot. In 1952 he was assigned to the aircraft carrier, Boxer, during the Korean conflict and flew Grumman Panthers. After the war, the love that he had for the Grumman aircraft design, led him to purchase a Bearcat (N7700C) and paint it in colors that he had seen on the autos in his dealership. Bill’s son, J. W. Jr., Corkey, also had a matching colored Bearcat and flew with his dad at numerous air shows. The wing design, although not considered a factor in wing failure of this type of aircraft, will come back to haunt us in this discussion.

TheF8F Bearcat was introduced after the capture of a German Folke-Wulf, FW 190. It wasn’t a copy, but the Grumman engineers used the 190 as a guideline to later develop the Bearcat. The engineers seemed to be concerned about structural failure of the wings at high g-forces, so the first Bearcats had wingtips that would detach when the g-force was above 7.5 g, allowing for a safe controlled carrier landing. Under certain conditions though, one wingtip detached and not the other. This left the aircraft unstable. An explosive charge was later added to both wingtips to detach the tip manually if needed. The wings in later models were reinforced and designed not to detach. Bill and Corkey flew together as a team in matching Bearcats in air shows across the country. Bill flew the N7700C and Corkey the N700A. There were very little differences in the paint scheme. Bill and Corkey were a great team that was well respected on the air show circuit. They flew shows on side of the Navy's Blue Angels and the Airforce Thunder Birds. One day in June, 1971, the airshow that Bill and Corkey was doing in Quonset Rhode Island, took a somber turn. John Goodrich, a long time fan, describes the mayhem.

"My son called me from California on Friday evening to tell meabout the Reno Air Race disaster. He had made plans to be at theevent, but canceled to attend funeral of an acquaintance, amother of three who died at 43 of cancer. My thoughtsimmediately went back to the sad day in June 1971 when I was atthe Quonset, Rhode Island Air Show and and witnessed the tragiccrash that took the life of Bill Fornof. I can vividly rememberthe sickening thump and fireball as the Bearcat went straightinto the ground and his son helplessly circling the crash sitebefore landing. I had a brief conversation with Bill Fornof inthe hangar some time before the accident. I remember him as avery cordial man, willing to answer any questions I had abouthis immaculately maintained Bearcat. I had attended the airshowon previous years when Bill was performing a solo routine beforeacquiring the second identical Bearcat flown by his son. I wasso impressed by the spectacular performance that I would drivefrom Mystic, Connecticut on Saturday and again on Sunday towatch the incredible routine. Exactly like Ed Auble's memories,I was awed by the power and rapid acceleration of thesebeautiful metallic bronze aircraft with black and white stripes.From a standing start at the end of the runway in just a matterof seconds, the tail was up, the plane airborne, landing gearretracted and they would roar past the spectators in low, levelflight gaining speed and momentum. Then they would pull upsharply into amazing steep climbs, roll out at altitude andbegin a series if truly impressive, thrilling aerobatics. Thelow, high speed passes in front of the spectators after comingout of a steep dive were awesome. However it was one of thosesteep, near vertical dives that ended in the heartbreakingcrash. I often wonder what was the hidden, unforeseen fatal flawthat caused this horrible disaster. I would guess it wasprobably metal fatigue from years of repeated stress. I lost allenthusiasm for air shows for many years after that fateful day.Jim Franklin, and Art Scholl, performers at air shows I attendedwere also killed. I find no pleasure in watching such fine menrisk and too often lose their lives needlessly, resulting inunimaginable grief and sorrow for suffering families. I had 8 mm movie films of Bill Fornof's Bearcat in action at theQuonset Air Show, but unfortunately they were lost in a 1991 housefire. I wish I still had them to share with you."